Fun Fun Fun till Daddy takes the dream away .

"They stab it with their steely knives / but they just can't kill the beast"

Sure scared me away from California until I was about 22 or so...

'after the Summer of Love' - oppo-coasters Blue Oyster Cult were so obsessed with Altamont they wrote TWO songs about it ("This Ain't the Summer of Love", "Transmaniacon MC"
'Emptiness, decadence' - David Bowie "Station to Station", Steely Dan "Glamour Profession" - songs that celebrate decadence are usually great (not for the 'decadence' part, but for the 'celebration' part! If art isn't for finding the interesting bits of everything then what's it for?), songs produced BY that decadence (Cali-70s model) are usually enervating. Listen to the box sets of Toto and Firefall for proof.
I lived in Cali for three years in the 90s and I loved it. Every single criticism/stereotype levelled at the Golden State is true and I don't care, it's the best. Now I'm living in the anti-Cali (England) and it's horrible.

Yes, this is very accurate. I'm wracking my brains for an upbeat take on California in the past 20 years and I can't think of anything. Maybe some Redd Kross songs, although that's more of a love/hate thing. Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls"?

As for question #2, I don't think anyone's done hasbeen/wannabe desperation better than Bowie on "Cracked Actor". Also love the Go-Gos booster ambivalence on "This Town". Both of these songs really made me want to move to LA, despite the decadence/cynicism. " 'We're all dreamers/we're all whores' --sounds like my kinda town!"

Honorable mention: Bryan Ferry's as the lovelorn Brit getting all Joan Didion in "Can't Let Go" . I crack up every time he croons the words "Canoga Park."

Upbeat California song - Randy Newman! "Look at that mountain, look at that tree, look at that bum there down on his knees" - "I Love LA"

Another up-beat Cali song - 'California Love' by 2Pac/Dr. Dre ("California knows how to party").

"California Uber Alles"/"We've Got a Bigger Problem Now" by Dead Kennedys....not so much a sweeping statement about California, but the brand of politicians the State has spewn forth.

"Bevery Hills" by Circle Jerks ("Bevery Hills/Century City/Everything's So Nice & Pretty/All the People/They Look the Same/Don't They Know They're So Damn Lame!")

"O.C. Life" by D.I. (about ultra-conservative/ultra-vaccuous Orange County)

Erm... basically, the collected output of the Brian Jonestown Massacre (lyrically, not musically, because I do actually love the band) especially the "Strung Out In Heaven" album are evidence of why I consider the Left Coast very strongly philosophically unsound, and why I will never ever live there.

Pastiches past and present - double up Mr Bungle's 'California' with Zappa's 'Cruisin' with Ruben & the Jets'

Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" sounds pretty upbeat to me - it makes want to see the sun come up over Santa Monica Boulevard.

Suprised noone's mentioned X's 'Los Angeles' (ie, the entire album, not just the song) - if anything, it depicted the seedy, bankrupt life of living in the city of electric light. In fact, their entire career seems to be fueled by such dark images of normal life (drugs, religion, marriage, AA) through the LA underbelly.

Didn't Corey Feldman release a (mis)concept album about a typically soulless weekend in LA? I heard just a snippet of it on the radio once, and I have to admit that it sounded so completely detached from reality and so over the top, that there just might be something to it in terms of summing up.

Speaking about Zappa, I think Sheikh Yerbouti is a pretty good run-down on late-seventies LA decadence. "Bobby Brown," "Broken Hearts Are for Assholes," and "I've Been In You" can still strip paint they're so toxic. Then there's always "Valley Girl."

To my ears, though, nothing captures contemporary Southern California vapidity better than No Doubt-style nu-ska. Uuuugh. That shit almost makes Westchester County seem exciting and profound.

And why has San Francisco been let off the hook? Seems to me that the town that gave the world the Grateful Dead, Rancid, OJ Simpson, and rents that make Manhattan's seem almost reasonable deserves a good kick or two.

For the decadence of California, I have to nominate: Modest Mouse, "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" (let's celebrate the apocalypse!) Steely Dan, "Glamour Profession" (let's do lots of drugs!) Albert Hammond, "It Never Rains in Southern California" (let's feel sorry for ourselves when we run out of drugs!)

Cheers, Gazoo.

Help Save The Youth Of America by Billy Bragg

Help save the youth of America Help save them from themselves Help save the sun-tanned surfer boys And the Californian Girls

When the lights go out in the rest of the World What do our cousins say They're playing in the sun and having fun fun fun Till Daddy takes the gun away

From the Big Church to the Big River And out to the Shining Sea This is the Land of Opportunity And there's a Monkey Trial on tv

A nation with their freezers full Are dancing in their seats While outside another nation Is sleeping in the streets

Don't tell me the old old story Tell me the truth this time Is the Man in the Mask or the Indian An enemy or a friend of mine

Help save the youth of America Help save them youth of the World Help save the boys in uniform Their mothers and their faithful girls

Listen to the voice of the soldier Down in the killing zone Talking about the cost of living And the price of bringing him home

They're already shipping the body bags Down below the Rio Grande But you can fight for democracy at home And not in some foreign land

And the fate of the great United States Is entwined with the fate of us all And the incident at Tschernobyl proves The world we live in is very small

And the cities of Europe have burned before And they may yet burn again And if they do I hope you understand That Washington will burn with them Omaha will burn with them Los Alamos will burn with them.

For all of Zappa's cynicism and political pretensions, he wrote some of the few songs describing California as a place where real schmucks lived and worked a non-"Glamour Profession" existence - "San Ber'dino", "Flakes", "Yo' Mama", and even "Tinseltown Rebellion" (hey, jobbing musicians are the biggest working-class schmucks there is - pony-tailed GIT grads trying to get famous in new-wave bands, how much more slice-of-life can you get than that?)

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing
Until I pay my bill
-Warren Zevon

no song, but bill hicks' arizona bay pretty much covers it - we're out here evolving!